Real estate purchase and sale
In case you are buying or selling real estate, there are several necessary steps in the successful realization of this legal act. We definitely advise you to seek legal advice from a lawyer who will perform the necessary inspections of the real estate for you, draft a purchase and sale contract that best suits your needs, as well as accompany you on your path to a successful purchase/sale.
The real estate purchase and sale is a bilaterally binding legal act in which the seller commits to hand over the real estate to the buyer’s possession and ownership, and the buyer pays the purchase price for that. The Civil Obligations Act prescribes a written form for a real estate purchase and sale contract. Such a written contract must contain certain necessary elements to be valid but also suitable for the registration of the ownership right in the land registry.
No two legal acts are the same, so every sale carries its own challenges. Before concluding the contract, it is necessary to check whether the seller is authorized to dispose of the property, whether the ownership of the property is in order, whether the property is encumbered with any encumbrances and, if so, what are they. If the lawyer notices that there is an active seal for the property, a record of a dispute, or a registered right or encumbrance in favor of third parties in the land registry, they will inform the party and explain what exactly each of these entries means for the contracting parties, or what challenges or dangers these entries carry for a potential buyer.
Depending on the needs of the parties, before concluding the main contract, the drafting and conclusion of a preliminary contract may be appropriate, and various provisions can be included in the main contract, depending on what the specific situation or wishes and possibilities of the parties require. Thus, in practice, purchase and sale contracts most often regulate the manner and dynamics of payment of the purchase price, the issue of utilities, furniture and equipment in the property, the moment of handover into possession, the seller’s liability for legal and material defects of the property, etc.
Each real estate purchase and sale contract must contain personal data on the contracting parties (name, surname, address, and PIN), description of the real estate (land registry plot number, area, land registry file number, cadastral municipality, name of the court keeping the land registry), and the purchase price.
To be able to register their right of ownership on the basis of the contract, it is necessary to certify the seller’s signature with a notary public. Also, the seller’s quitclaim, by which they authorize the buyer to register the property in the land registry, is required. The quitclaim may be contained in the contract itself or may be given in a separate document, whereby the seller’s signature must be certified on that document as well. The dynamics or method of payment of the purchase price are what determines whether the quitclaim will be contained in the contract or in a separate document. Therefore, if the purchase price is to be paid in the time after the conclusion of the contract, we advise the parties to have the quitclaim contained in a separate document which can be deposited with a notary until the entire purchase price is paid to the seller.
Prior to the payment of the entire purchase price, the buyer may pre-register their right of ownership of the real estate in the land registry, and after the payment of the entire purchase price and handing over the quitclaim to the buyer, they use it to execute the so-called justification of the pre-registration and become the registered owner of the property.
If you are abroad and hold Croatian citizenship, you can certify your signature on a contract or a quitclaim at the Croatian consulate or you can certify it with your foreign notary public with an Apostille.
What if the buyer is a foreigner?
Persons who are not Croatian citizens may acquire real estate in the Republic of Croatia in two cases; if they are citizens of a Member State of the European Union or if they have obtained the consent of the Ministry of Justice in the case where there is reciprocity between the Republic of Croatia and the state of which the buyer is a citizen. Also, in this case it is necessary to obtain a certificate of land use for the property to be purchased, given that foreigners cannot acquire agricultural land, but only real estate in construction areas.
We can obtain all necessary certificates and consents for you on the basis of a power of attorney, and for our foreign clients we also obtain a personal identification number (OIB), which is necessary for the acquisition of real estate.
For its clients, the Law Office performs all necessary actions for the successful conclusion of contracts and the transfer of ownership in the land registry of the competent court.
Contact us with confidence.